The Japanese car market will grow by 3.3% in 2025
- The Japanese passenger car market is projected to grow by 3.3% in 2025, following a similar decline in 2024. However, for the past two decades, car sales in Japan have stagnated, and have even shown a downward trend since 2020. Japan's automotive market is indeed highly saturated, and younger generations are increasingly less interested in purchasing new cars, even Kei cars (small, specialized vehicles that benefit from incentives in Japan, particularly tax breaks). Since 2020, the Japanese car market has remained below 4 million units, compared to around 5 million units in the early 2000s and 4.5 million units in the early 2010s.
- By carmaker group, the Toyota group (Toyota, Lexus, Daihatsu) remains by far the leader of the Japanese market, with 45% market share, therefore almost one in two cars, ahead of Suzuki (specialist in Kei Cars with Daihatsu ) which occupies 16% of the market, Honda (15% of the market) which loses its second place to Suzuki, Nissan (9% of the market) which is gradually becoming a small carmaker in Japan, whereas it was still in second position until 2005.
- Behind them, Mazda (3% of the market), Mitsubishi (3% of the market), and Subaru (3% of the market) occupy a small portion of the Japanese market, their sales volume becoming increasingly marginal. Finally, imports traditionally represent 6% of the Japanese market, primarily from Europe (80%) and North America (15%).